I am saddened by the protective conservative ethos of some of our cathedral elites. Much as I was filled with pride to hear multiple distinguished professor discuss their love of Boulder as emblematic of the town we should all aspire to live in. It is a truly special town.
Alas I have to question why it is that scholars with security and prestige can afford my hometown but their children’s generation couldn’t.
I am deeply saddened by the rising costs of my childhood town. We come back during the pandemic. When starting out I left my home as expenses rose. My family didn’t own property. Regular people moved to other towns. Those who bought early fight to keep things. As they are. So only the wealthy, often conservative socially or economically, but generally institutionally secure elders own the town and no one else.
These preservation minded wealthy, either virtuous liberals or cultural conservatives want to preserve the values that created Boulder. The irony is not lost on me that the futurism of going back benefits the past entirely at the expense of the future.
But what moral or political good could there be in your perfect town and perfect conservation of certain mores if the children moved away.
You live in a garden made by weirdos and hippies and shined it into an expense that their own young cannot participate in it. Hippies and engineers produced a counter culture and turned it into a luxury good they did not uniformly pass down.
Boulder became a luxury good. I grant I could have a small piece of that. But would we flourish? Our elder elites keep their houses and smugly advocate against change to house even their own children. This change that necessary for the future their children will live in. We must be able to build for it.
I miss Boulder but I don’t miss this smug elitism of virtue. We chose to have a life where we could have a house and land and space for our lives and a regulatory climate where we could build the technology that will shape our future. I am sad it wasn’t going to be Boulder. We’ve lost Boulder to the security of the past and it’s expensive maintenance.
Bozeman is now the Boulder of the 90s. And I want to build up its future through the efforts of its industrious citizens and their ambition for building a future.
A forward thinking and growth focused governor introduced a future of building things with tools and technology and owning those benefits together. That the vision I want for Colorado and for Boulder.
Pairing his vision with two aesthetically conservative growth skeptical perspectives helps us realize the large gaps in values. And so I despair for the fact that I can never go home. So I must fight for my future. Which is I suppose what Renegade Futurism is all about.